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author: meg cabot

Happy New Year, everyone! The last month of 2017 was, for me, full of shopping and baking, an awful lot of eating, and – of course – lots and lots of books. Most of what I read was actually short stories, as I was trying to tick off the last of my reading challenges for the year, but still, I did a lot more reading in the last month than I have in a while. 😊 In total, I managed to read three novels, and eight short stories (and, yes, I did manage to complete that challenge 🎊).

Catching Jordan by Miranda Kenneally. The first book in the Hundred Oaks series, a collection of contemporary books that share a setting, but have largely disconnected stories and lead characters… I had high hopes for this series as another set of cute contemporaries – this time with a sports focus, which I seem to be susceptible to 😅 – but I probably would have been better off just re-reading Now & Then (by Emma Mills), which is just a better book all around. It was quite cute, but the characters were all pretty bland, and the story and romance were both completely predictable. I doubt I’ll be reading any more from this series.Bombshells by Jim Butcher. A Dresden Files novella that I found in the Dangerous Women anthology, which follows Harry Dresden’s apprentice Molly on what she thinks is a mission to rescue a vampire who’s being held hostage – but she quickly realises that she’s only been told a small fraction of the true story. I found the plot of this quite interesting, but, as someone who’s only read the tiniest bit of The Dresden Files (volume 1 of one of the graphic novel adaptations) and barely remembers it, most of the finer details were lost on me… I definitely think that this is a story that is aimed at people who already know the series, though it does still make an enjoyable standalone.Raisa Stepanova by Carrie Vaughn. A short story from the Dangerous Women anthology about a Soviet fighter pilot during the second world war, who’s aiming for the five kills she needs in order to be recognised as an ace fighter, but is held back by worry for her brother, who’s recently been declared missing in action. As is the case with many short stories, I enjoyed this, but found that there wasn’t really enough of it for me to find something to get really invested in. Raisa was an interesting character, and seeing the air force from the perspective of a female pilot was also interesting… Given everything that she was going through, however, I was surprised that the narrative was so fast-paced and action-oriented…Wrestling Jesus by Joe R. Lansdale. Another short story from Dangerous Women, though in this case the titular dangerous woman didn’t have much of an active role in the story; the main character is a teenager called Marvin who’s having problems with bullies, and ends up being taken under the wing of a surprisingly tough old man, who turns out to be a former wrestler. These days, he only fights once every five years though, against a rival who’s in love with the same woman… Despite my dislike for wrestling, I really liked this story; it’s definitely one of my favourites so far from this anthology. Marvin was a great, relatable lead, and the old man (usually called by his stage name X-Man) offered both wisdom and comedy… I was more interested in Marvin’s situation with the bullies than with X-Man & Jesus’ rivalry, but both parts were very entertaining. 👍 (Also, major Karate Kid vibes, especially in the first half.)Neighbors by Megan Lindholm. A short story (also from Dangerous Women) about an old woman called Sarah whose neighbour disappears one foggy night. Sarah witnesses Linda’s departure, but when she later sees strangers in the streets wearing Linda’s distinctive backpack, nobody believes her. Meanwhile, believing her to be unable to care for herself any longer, Sarah’s two children try to persuade her to sell her house and move into an assisted living home… A powerful and moving (and also quite sad) take on growing old, with a touch of magical realism, and an incredibly unreliable narrator. Lindholm’s writing was beautiful, and made me feel really connected to Sarah, which is an impressive feat in a story that’s less than fifty pages long. Definitely a hit!

I Know How to Pick ‘Em by Lawrence Block. A man and a woman meet in a bar, and the woman takes the man home with her, hoping that she can entice him to help her sort out a little problem, but unfortunately he’s already guessed at her plan, and has one of his own. This short story (from Dangerous Women) was an interesting look into the minds of two terrible people (neither named); one incredibly selfish, and the second – from whose perspective the story is told – deeply disturbed. And Block’s narrative cleverly makes it so that it takes a while to realise exactly how awful each of the characters (but particularly the second one) truly is… I don’t know if I’d say that I enjoyed this, but it definitely got me thinking.Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell by Brandon Sanderson. A short story from Dangerous Women which is set in the world of Cosmere, and tells the tale of an innkeeper and her daughter, who live in the middle of a dangerous forest filled with spirits, and secretly hunt down criminals who cross their path. Sanderson’s worldbuilding is always top-notch, and this story was no exception to that rule; he was really able to bring the forest and all its dangers to life. The plot was really intriguing, too, and I really liked both the main characters, Silence and William Ann… I believe there are more Cosmere books, but I definitely feel that this story can stand alone.Royal Wedding by Meg Cabot. The final book in the Princess Diaries series, set several years after the conclusion of the main series, and documenting Mia’s adult life, where her main thoughts have shifted from Michael, her domineering grandmother, Michael, and the difficulty of being a teenage princess, to Michael, her still domineering grandmother, Michael, and the difficulty of being a no-longer-teenage princess… So, Mia is still the same person she’s always been, and I kind of love her for it. And also find her hilarious. 😂 This book was very much a blast from the past, and I enjoyed it immensely; I hadn’t realised quite how much I’d missed Mia and all her crazy worries. This was my Library Scavenger Hunt pick for the month, so you can find a full review of it here.A Queen in Exile by Sharon Kay Penman. A historical short story (from Dangerous Women) about Queen Constance of Sicily, with a focus on her husband’s invasion of her homeland, and the birth of her son (Frederick II, who would go on to become the Holy Roman Emperor). This was an interesting story, but I’m not sure how much I actually liked Constance’s voice, and Penman’s writing style was rather matter-of-fact… I am, however, somewhat curious to read some of her other books, so clearly it wasn’t actually all that off-putting. 😉

Midnights by Rainbow Rowell. Snapshots of a pair of friends during the countdown to every New Year they’ve experienced together. This was a really cute little story (from the anthology My True Love Gave to Me, for a change! 😋); not as good as Kindred Spirits, Rowell’s other short story, but that one sets the bar pretty high. The characters were well fleshed-out, however, and the snapshots of them year after year showed the progression of their relationship brilliantly.Radio Silence by Alice Oseman. My final book of the year follows a sixth-former called Frances, who is focused on doing well at school to the exclusion of almost everything else – until one evening a boy she knows accidentally reveals himself to her as the creator of her favourite podcast, Universe City, which tells the tale of a person stuck in a strange, monster-ridden university campus. I heard briefly about this book a while ago, but wasn’t really all that interested in reading it until I found it on a list of books with confirmed asexual characters, something that there isn’t nearly enough of in the literary world as a whole, let alone YA… But I’m really glad that I decided to pick this up, as it connected with me on so many levels, even disregarding the asexuality issues that it brings up (briefly; that’s not the focus of the book by a long shot). I’ll be posting a review soon (once I’ve got all my New Year posts out of the way), so keep an eye out for that, but in short: An amazing book, and definitely one of my favourites of 2017.

For this month’s LSH – to read the last book in a series – I have to admit that I cheated a little… I did make a trip to the library in hopes of finding something, but the only series that I was near to finishing ended with books that I either already owned, or planned to buy before reading, so I went home empty handed, deciding instead to read a book that was waiting for me at home, and that I was extremely excited for. I feel a little bit bad about it, but not so bad that I won’t still count this towards the challenge…

ROYAL WEDDINGMeg Cabot

Seven years after the conclusion of the original Princess Diaries series, Mia Thermopolis is now twenty-five years old, a published author, the founder of a community youth programme, a powerful public figure… and still subject to the dramatic mood swings of the media, who love her and hate her in unpredictable turns.

Seven years passed between the releases of Ten Out of Ten (/Forever Princess) and Royal Wedding in real-time, as well as in the books, and I was a little nervous to be stepping back into Mia’s life after such a long break; these were books that I couldn’t get enough of as a teenager, but haven’t really looked at since, so I was worried that Mia would seem either altered beyond recognition, or else petty and immature. But it appears that my fears were unfounded! 😁 Mia definitely seems different enough that the years show, but still retains all the character traits (and flaws) that made her so loveable in the original books. I think that Cabot has done a great job in this book of making her relatable to an audience that’s also grown older.

Plot-wise, there weren’t very many surprises in this book, but my primary enjoyment wasn’t in being surprised, but in watching Mia be surprised – and I don’t think that surprising the readers was Cabot’s objective, either. Mia’s narrative was as hilarious as always, and it was lovely to revisit all her old friends as well, and see what they were up to. I was pleased to find that Mia was still close to both Tina (now in medical school) and Lilly (in law school), and the references to Rocky’s obsession with farting reminded me of a few real-world pre-teen boys that I know. 😓 And I loved the way that Boris was worked into the story, although he never showed up in person. Many of my favourite moments, however, came at the hands of Grandmère, who – in classic Grandmère style – caused as much trouble as she could to as many people as she could, wherever possible.

And, of course, there will always be a place in my heart for Michael and Mia. 💕

[Find out more about the Library Scavenger Hunt by following this link!]

Well, this post has been a long time coming! I think the last book haul I posted must’ve been in July? Or maybe even earlier… In any case, I’ve been adding things to this list since August, when I broke my book-buying ban on a trip to Topping in Ely… But I’ve managed to be pretty good since then. 👍 (The library has been my friend.) These are the books I bought from August to October:

1) The Art of Fire Emblem: Awakening. A book that’s pretty self-explanatory… Fire Emblem: Awakening is one of my favourite games, and I really loved all the art in it, so I was very happy to find this at Topping, despite the pain I felt in the general vicinity of my wallet (at the total price of everything I bought there, rather than just the price of this book, which wasn’t unreasonable for an art book of this size)…

2) The Dark Prophecy by Rick Riordan. Another treat to myself from Topping. I was actually debating between getting this or History is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera, but I came down on the side of The Dark Prophecy because they had signed copies. The second book in the Trials of Apollo series, set in the Percy Jackson universe but focusing on the god Apollo who’s been turned into a mortal teenager. This isn’t my favourite of the Percy Jackson-verse series’, but I had a lot of fun with The Hidden Oracle, and I’m sure that I’ll enjoy this one, too.

3) On the Pleasure of Hating by William Hazlitt, On Liberty by John Stuart Mill & The Rights of Man by H.G. Wells. The last three books from my splurge in Ely, all of which are indulgences of my (kind of) recent obsession with civil rights… The first two books are part of the Penguin Great Ideas series, which I’m tempted to start collecting (they’re really nice editions), despite the fact that not all of them appeal to me content-wise. 😓 I read On the Pleasure of Hating back in October, but have yet to start on the other two.

4) The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, Beauty’s Punishment & Beauty’s Release by Anne Rice. The entire original Sleeping Beauty trilogy (though I believe another sequel was written not long ago). Not pictured, because I couldn’t bring myself to remove them from my “get-rid-of-ASAP” pile. I read (and had way too many thoughts about) the first book in September, and it was one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever come across. Which is saying a lot… I was hesitantly considering reading the other two out of morbid curiosity, but decided on further refection that sticking needles in my eyes would be a better use of my time. 😑

5) La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman. The first volume of TheBook of Dust, which is a companion series to His Dark Materials, one of my favourite trilogies of all time. I haven’t managed to start this book yet due to way too many other time commitments, but I’m hoping it’ll be one of the first things I read in 2018. 😆

6) Royal Wedding by Meg Cabot. The follow-up to the Princess Diaries series, which follows a grown-up Mia dealing with the stress of her royal duties and all the personal drama that always seems to follow her around. I started reading this the night before last, and it’s been great fun so far, getting back into Mia’s head, but with a slightly (only very slightly) more mature spin on things. I had a grin on my face the whole time I was reading. 😁 Review to come soon.

7) A History of Magic. The catalogue for the exhibition that’s currently on at the British Library, which is about Harry Potter and occult history. I wrote a whole post about the exhibition just the other day, but in short, it was really fascinating, and this catalogue is basically the exhibition in book form -though, of course, it’s different seeing the exhibits in the flesh (as it were) than in pictures. A wonderful book that I will be perusing often now that I’ve recovered it from my mother. 😋

Happy summer! The sun is shining today (at long last), and I am decidedly not outside, because I clearly have no common sense… And because I wanted to write a blog post, of course. 😉 There don’t seem to be quite so many new books being released this summer as there were in spring, but there are still a few that I’m really excited for – here’s what I’m looking forward to picking up in the months of June, July and August!

[NB: All dates are taken from Amazon UK unless stated otherwise, and are correct as of 05/06/2016.]

Risuko by David Kudler (15th June)

The first in a new historical series called Seasons of the Sword, which is set in sixteenth-century Japan, known as the Warring States Era, and follows a girl called Risuko (which means squirrel) who gets caught up in the civil war and is (presumably) trained to be a kunoichi – a female ninja / spy. This is a period I don’t know all that much about, but which has always fascinated me, so I’m really excited to pick this up. And who can say no to a good ninja story? Not me, certainly. 😉

The Shadow Hourby Melissa Grey (12th July)

The sequel to The Girl at Midnight, which I read almost as soon as it came out last year and really loved. It’s only been a year, but I do feel like I’ve been waiting forever for this book, since there were some really dramatic revelations at the end of the last one, and it definitely left me wanting more. If you haven’t yet started this series, then now’s a great time to pick it up! 😀

A book that needs no introduction, and seems to be on everyone’s “most anticipated” lists for the whole year, let alone the summer. I myself am more excited to see the play than to read the script, but I will absolutely be doing both anyway. XD The first performances will actually be staged in just a couple of days, though I expect I’ll have to wait quite a bit longer to see it…

Remembrance by Meg Cabot (11th August)

Lastly, a Mediator spin-off novel, which takes place several years post-series, and follows Suze (and her relationship with Jesse) as she starts her first job. Meg Cabot also wrote a post-Princess Diaries book a little while ago (although I still haven’t read it), & I’m really liking this trend of revisiting the characters from her series when they’re adults (as most of the books’ fans now are); I hope it’s something that she’s planning on continuing with… a Missing sequel, perhaps? 🙂

This tag was created by Mariana at fireheartbooks, and I was tagged by the wonderful Loreva from La Book Dreamer, whose blog you should all definitely check out! The goal is to pick out a book for every letter of the alphabet, and the only rule is that you need to own (or to have previously owned and read) every book on the list. You also don’t need to include articles, e.g. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess would count for “C” rather than “A”.

Phew. That was a lot of books! But I’m pleased to say that I have read all of these books, and I still own them all except for Unravel Me, which I gave to one of my cousins, and River Daughter, which I donated (it was a good book, I just couldn’t imagine myself reading it again). And I did have to break out my manga collection for “X” and “Z” – something I’d been hoping I wouldn’t have to do – but I regret nothing. 😎

These are the new releases I’m most looking forward to this summer, & will cover June, July and August 2015.

[NB: All dates are taken from Amazon UK unless stated otherwise, and are correct as of 6/05/2015.]

To Hold the Bridge by Garth Nix (4th June)

A short story collection in which the titular work is a novella set in the Old Kingdom universe, which is one of my favourite series of all time. The story is about Morghan, an aspiring cadet in the Greenwash Bridge Company. The other stories in the collection appear to be from various different genres, and I’m really interested to see what spin Garth Nix will put on them.

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir (4th June)

There’s been so much hype for this book, and I believe that it’s already out in quite a lot of places, which I’m obviously super-jealous about, since I’m going to have to wait until June. This is a fantasy book based on ancient Rome, and it’s currently a standalone, though I’ve heard that the story really begs for a sequel…

Royal Wedding by Meg Cabot (2nd July)

The long-awaited sequel to the Princess Diaries series, in which Mia is all grown up and getting married! I’ve been wanting a book like this since I finished Ten Out of Ten, and I’m so excited that it’s finally going to be a thing! 😀

Percy Jackson and the Greek Heroes by Rick Riordan (6th August)

A re-telling of some of the heroic Greek myths from the point of view of Percy Jackson, à la Percy Jackson and the Greek Gods, which I loved. I don’t know which stories will be included in this, but I’m pretty excited for them regardless.

The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness (27th August)

A save-the-world-type story, told from the perspective of the hero’s best friends, who really just wants to finish school without the world ending (or any other such things). This book sounds like so much fun, and since it’s by Patrick Ness (who wrote the Chaos Walking series as well as The Crane Wife, which I loved), I can already tell it’s going to be really well-written.

There are a lot of books that have influenced me over the years, and they’ve done so in various ways: Books that have changed my way of looking at the world; books that have been instrumental in creating lasting friendships; books that made me think about issues that I’d never considered before…

I thought that today I’d let you know about a few of the books that have influenced me the most over the years (for better or for worse), & tell you a little bit about how. I’ve picked out ten (though there are, of course, a lot more out there), and I’d love to hear about how you think you’ve been shaped by books, so be sure to leave a comment to let me know!

In the order in which I first read them:

1) Biff, Chip & Kipper series. I don’t know what this series is actually called, but oh well. There are probably hundreds of these books, & I’m pretty sure that my primary school had the lot. During my first few years at school, we would have time every week to sit down & read these books, to develop our reading ability, but I absolutely hated them! I guess that pretty much everyone hates the books that they were made to read at school, but I got started pretty early: I must have been about five when these books led me to the conclusion that reading was a chore. I don’t remember ever finding them difficult to read – just annoying.

[Edit (9/9/2014): Literally a few seconds after posting this, I checked my email and found a Nintendo Newsletter announcing a Biff, Chip & Kipper game series, so apparently that’s a thing. 😐 ]

2) The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. An exception to my no-books rule, since I never technically read this book myself. When my sister and I behaved ourselves, our Dad would sometimes come upstairs and read a chapter of The Hobbit to us before we went to bed. I was completely obsessed with it, and I even called my fish-shaped lunchbox Bilbo, after the main character (or possibly Gandalf. My sister & I had matching lunchboxes…). When Dad had finished the book, I wanted so badly for him to start again from the beginning, that he went out and bought me the tapes of the BBC audio drama, which was the first audiobook (kind of) that I ever listened to.

3) Harry Potter & the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling. I think that pretty much everyone in my generation has been influenced in some way by the Harry Potter series. In my case, this was the book that made me love reading. My sister was badgering me to read this series pretty much as soon as it came out, but I was stubborn, and ended up not picking it up until a little before Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire was released, when my best friend Jen started pressing me to read it, too. I went home, read the first couple of chapters, got frustrated that it wasn’t moving quickly enough, and then, at school the next day, I told Jen something along the lines of, “This is boring. I though you said it was about a magic school.” Her response was to tell me to start from chapter 5 (I think), so I ended up skipping over most of the stuff with the Dursleys the first time (though nowadays that’s actually one of my favourite parts of the book).

Anyway, needless to say, I loved it, and when I’d finished, my parents were so overjoyed that I was reading for fun that they went straight out and bought me the next two books in the series (something that my sister thought was incredibly unfair, since, having been an avid reader pretty much her whole life, she had to save up all her pocket money if she wanted new books to read), and I read them both in a day, and then went and re-read all three over and over until Goblet of Fire came out…

4) Flambards by K.M. Peyton. I first read this book in year 7 at school (when I was 11), and it was the book that made me realise that school books didn’t always have to be boring. I ended up finishing it way ahead of time, and when I did, the first question I asked my English teacher was, “Does this have a sequel?” It did, and I raced through the other three books in the series, as well. I eventually also discovered an old TV adaptation, which was amazingly done and I recommend to anyone who likes World War I-era period dramas, or horses, or aeroplanes.

5) The Protector of the Small quartet by Tamora Pierce. It’s complete luck that I ever actually read this series, since the first book (First Test) was a Christmas present from my parents, who have notoriously bad luck picking out books for me. I probably only read it because I was stuck for the whole holiday at my Granny’s house, where the only other books available were things that I felt even less like reading. This series was what got me started on fanfiction – the first fanfic I ever read was a Kel/Merric story set a few years after the end of Lady Knight – which is still a surprisingly big part of my life.

6) Daughter of Storms by Louise Cooper. I probably first picked this up when I was about 12, just by chance in Waterstones one day – my attention was drawn to the book next to it on the shelf (The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper), and I only looked at this one because I thought the cover was pretty, and the title was kind of interesting. I actually really love this whole trilogy, but the main reason it’s on this list is because this was the first book I read that made me really want to write my own stories. I remember that after I finished the last book in the series (Keepers of Light), I started planning out my own series of fantasy novels (with a main character who suspiciously resembled the girl on the cover of Daughter of Storms), and I spent almost my entire summer holiday writing about her adventures.

7) The Song of the Lioness quartet by Tamora Pierce. This series is what really sparked my love affair with high fantasy (which is my favourite genre), and also with Tamora Pierce (who is probably my all-time favourite author). It’s definitely not the best of her series’ (nor the first one I read), but it was the one that best managed to capture my attention, and – more surprisingly – to keep it.

8) The Grey King by Susan Cooper. This is the fourth book in the Dark is Rising sequence, which I briefly mentioned when I was talking about Daughter of Storms. I initially picked up The Dark is Rising on a whim, and I really didn’t like it (or rather, I could barely follow it), but a couple of years later, I came across a bind-up of the whole series, and discovered that I had actually tried to start the series from the second book. Needless to say, this has made me a little more cautious about starting books that I don’t know anything about, and now I will usually look up books that sound interesting and make sure there’s not another book that I should read first…

But anyway, The Grey King is the fourth book in the series, and my favourite. It takes place in Snowdonia, in Wales, and a large part of the story is tied up in local Arthurian legends. This was the book that really got me interesting in mythology (particularly Arthurian myths and Celtic myths), and was a big part of the reason why I decided to go to Wales for University. It’s also a book that my cousins and I bonded over (we spent a couple of weeks one summer visiting all the places that Will and Brân went to in the book), so it’s also very special to me for that reason. 🙂

9) The Princess Diaries series by Meg Cabot. This series made me fall in love with love stories. It was so funny and Mia was such a realistic character that reading these books made me feel like she was actually speaking to me. And Michael, I swoon for thee. Michael was probably one of my very first book boyfriends, and Michael/Mia was definitely my first OTP (One True Pairing). I remember watching the two films with my cousins (who were very young at the time), and rejoicing at the end of the second film, when my cousin Zou turned around and said to me sadly, “Why couldn’t she have married Michael?” This series is basically on this list because it turned me into a massive shipper. ~♥

10) The Hungry City Chronicles by Philip Reeve. Also known as the Predator Cities series; also known as the Mortal Engines series. Whatever you call it, this series is awesome, and it made this list because it was the first series I ever read that really made me think about the future, and not just in an ecological, the-world-is-going-to-die sense (though there is that, too). Shrike is my favourite character from this series, and also one of my favourite characters of all time, and the journey of self-discovery that he goes on in the series incorporates a lot of thought/discussion about the way that the civilisations of the future will look back on the events of today. I first picked up Mortal Engines, the first book in the series, when I was about 15 at the insistence of my friend Clare, and it’ll probably (hopefully) stick with me for the rest of my life.